


The Hardest of Hearts

by orphan_account



Category: White Collar
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-01
Updated: 2010-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought I'd see just what it was about this life that made you think it was worth what you did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest of Hearts

A/N: From a collarkink prompt [here:](http://community.livejournal.com/collarkink/1093.html?thread=672837#t672837) _Neal did something against Peter, got himself thrown back into jail and came out to find Peter and Elizabeth had moved away and disappeared without a trace. He's determined to find them and make it up to Peter._ I wanted to do an AU for this fandom and this seemed like a good one to try. It's not a true answer, really, because it's more about the end than the searching. Title, subheads from Florence and the Machine. 

1\. _There's love in your body but you can't hold it in._

The flowers arrive first. A large but conventional arrangement, roses and lilies and carnations, in a clear glass vase encircled with a ribbon. There is no card.

Peter returns them to the delivering florist personally, courteously, but in a way that makes it clear there will be consequences for their business should further deliveries be made. The owner apologizes, flutters, as Peter walks out.

The box of meat is next. Porterhouse steaks, shipped same-day-air from a very small and exclusive butcher shop in New York, dry-aged and ready for the huge stainless steel grill on his tiled patio. The sort of thing he used to eat once a year, at most, for Christmas or an anniversary.

He takes them to the nearest homeless shelter and leaves them in the hands of the astonished volunters, along with a check.

Two weeks after that, the magnum of rich and smoky cabernet, which he leaves with a colleague whose children's school festival is soliciting for raffle prizes. One month after, the signed basketball, handed to a neighbor's astonished child, and the rare book about fingerprinting, anonymously donated to the local library's special collections department.

The following day he finds himself standing in his own driveway at 8 o'clock in the morning, looking with utter disbelief at the purebred chocolate Labrador puppy sitting in a spacious crate at his feet. The puppy barks, sticking one huge paw in its small water dish, and Peter feels a resentment so profound it almost chokes him.

That night, when the puppy's been fed and walked and is curled up on his couch, Peter scrawls a note on his old stationary, sends it to a P.O. box hundreds of miles away. Two words:

_Stop this._

The answer comes the following week, in the form of a box of perfect, dusky peaches, just beginning to ripen.

 

2\. _The tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks_

After Diana's funeral, the hearing was almost a relief. A grieving widow, angry family members, burials … he didn't know how to deal with these. A revocation hearing, now that was something he understood.

Peter's statement was straightforward: How they'd planned the stakeout for months, tempted the thief with previously unheard-of items for his collection, made him think they'd be left unguarded. It was the sort of operation on which Neal had assisted dozens of times, the sort of operation they'd hired him for in the first place. They had no reason to believe anything would go wrong.

They never did.

But the thief was an old friend of Neal's, and the tip Neal texted him from a pre-paid phone set him off. Not only did he show up to rob the place anyway, but he brought friends. Trigger-happy friends with excellent aim and lousy impulse control.

"I swear to you," Neal shouted, in the hospital corridor as Peter paced, covered in Diana's blood, "I swear to you, I thought he would run. I never thought – I never imagined Chester would do this. The man I knew wouldn't do this. Please, I swear it."

The surgeon emerged and shook his head sadly, and Christy collapsed into a chair. Jones patted her shoulder ineptly, looking gray and sick. Peter pulled a hand back, as angry as he'd ever been, and broke two fingers when he slammed his fist into the drywall.

"Get the fuck out of here," he snarled.

It was the last thing he said to Neal Caffrey, directly. Oh, they spoke during the hearing, they spoke in discovery and they spoke in motions and objections and sentencing. They spoke in every piece of evidence Peter offered and every defense Neal's attorney didn't make, but they never spoke to one another again.

Peter didn't testify. There was no need. They had the phone calls, the tracking data. They had ballistics. They had Neal, who didn't bother offering excuses, though his lawyer tried. It was quick. Neal was led away, and the door slammed behind him.

Peter barely made it to the bathroom before he vomited. He walked for hours that night, walked the island top to bottom, through neighborhoods he knew by heart and neighborhoods he couldn't spell, along the very edges of a prescribed two-mile radius.

 

3\. _The kindest of kisses melts the hardest of hearts._

The puppy wakes him the next morning, yanking his down comforter off with its tiny teeth, tearing a hole in the corner and trailing feathers across the carpet. Peter grabs it and the red leather leash it came with, and walks down the stairs.

"Have you named him yet?"

There's an ex-convict in his living room, wine open on his kitchen table and a bag of dog biscuits at which the puppy immediately begins pawing on the floor. It's like nothing has happened, like the past five years haven't taken place at all, and rage fills his vision with white for a moment.

"It's not even eight a.m., and you're already into my best bottle?" he says, putting the leash down on the table.

They circle, warily, while the puppy chews and watches. Neal gestures at the small Picasso in the large frame over the fireplace. "Nice." He looks at the books on the shelves, signed first editions, some very rare; runs his fingers down a spine or two.

He fills a room, Neal does. Even this one, this marble-floored expanse lit by skylights and an Art Deco chandelier. He fills a room and marks everything in it as his. Peter fights down the urge to snatch the Tiffany lamp Neal is now examining away from him before he can leave his fingerprints on it.

"When did you get all this?"

_Back this up, now._ "You picked my lock," Peter says. It isn't a question. "I could call the police."

Neal doesn't answer. He's looking at Peter patiently, and all Peter can think is _dammit._

So he does what anyone would do, if Neal Caffrey was in anyone's living room. He takes Neal on a tour of the house and its grounds. Let him see, Peter thinks. Let him see what I'm about now.

They walk without speaking through the tennis court, past the wing that houses the indoor swimming pool, and Peter shows Neal the gatehouse where his housekeeper and her husband live. He shows Neal the Rembrandt and the wine cellar, the Alfa Romeo and the vintage Corvette in the four-car garage, the boat he sails every spring.

His study – leather chairs, Turkish rug, fireplace tiled in green – is lined with photographs: Peter at the top of Kilamanjaro, at the North Pole, on the side of a volcano in Nicaragua, surfing in Hawaii, walking the streets of Rome. There's a different, pretty girl in each of them, and Peter answers the question Neal doesn't ask.

"Elizabeth left," he says, carelessly, scratching the puppy's ears. He's doing this on purpose now, being cavalier. He knows how to do it well.

"She said she didn't want to move to California, but that's where the job was."

She said she didn't want to live with a bitter, angry son of a bitch who hated everyone in his life for not being Neal Caffrey. She said she couldn't stand the man he'd become, materialistic and mocking, cold, who barely touched her and never laughed. She said she'd give up every dime he ever made or ever would make in every job he'd ever have for a minute with the man he used to be.

And when he snarled that that man had died with Diana, or maybe gone to prison with Neal, _then_ she said she didn't want to move to California.

"And what is the job exactly?"

He smiles, knowing it to be wolfish. "Security." He names the electronics conglomorate, watches Neal's eyebrows rise. "I went corporate, Neal. Remember? I thought I'd try out the big office and the fancy parties for a while.

"I thought I'd see what the life you loved felt like. I thought I'd enjoy the finer things for a while. Music – I have season tickets to the Symphony. Art. Fast cars. First class, every flight. Women, beautiful women, who all want to be a part of my life."

Neal looks pale, ill, and he hates himself for the satisfaction he feels. "Would you like some coffee? Italian roast, handmade in small batches in Umbria. I remember you used to like that sort of thing yourself."

He's doing this on purpose, being careless and vicious. He's very good at it now.

He should be. He learned from the best.

"I thought I'd see what kind of life was worth what you did."

 

4\. _There's love in your body but you can't get it out._

They've been sitting silent for a while now, across from one another in the chairs in front of the fireplace. Peter tries, for a moment, to think of something else to say.

"How did you find me?" is all he comes up with. "I'm listed nowhere on the company's website, and believe me, I made sure the public records contained no mention – Neal, tell me you didn't hack my bosses' computers –"

"Of course not," Neal snaps, looking offended. "Really, all I did was have a friend try to hack all the systems of Fortune 500 companies that he knew had recently instituted new security measures. It only took six months to find one he couldn’t get into, and I took a gamble from there. It was embarrassing, really, how simple it was."

For a moment it's so like the old days Peter has to grip the arms of his chair. The brass tacks leave impressions in his fingertips. " _Why_ did you find me?"

At this the pretend offense drops away and real hurt flashes across Neal's face. "You don't know?"

"You want forgiveness?" Peter laughs, makes himself laugh. It sounds rougher than he likes, and Neal looks away.

"I thought," he begins, and looks around him. "You have quite the life here, Peter. I'm sorry I interfered with it. I don't know what I thought."

He stands, and Peter rises with him, not wanting Neal to go but not wanting him to stay, either. Feeling like the air's been sucked out of the room. A common feeling, around Neal.

"I get it. I'm leaving. This was a stupid idea. But before I go, can you just – can you tell me – You forgave me all kinds of unforgivable things, all the time.

"Was it that it was Diana, that –"

His breathing is ragged. "It wasn't Diana." He hates himself for saying this, because it should have been Diana. She was a good friend and true colleague and her loss should have been what broke him. Not this:

"It's that you were lying to me _and I didn't know."_

Peter has seen Neal Caffrey led away in handcuffs, sentenced to prison, caught up to his elbows in stolen goods. He's seen him beaten and kidnapped and robbed, even conned. He's seen him utterly defeated, broken, weeping. He has never seen Neal like this.

He looks carved in marble. He's so still Peter wonders if he's still breathing.

"You lied to me constantly, but I always knew. Sometimes I pretended I didn't, but I always knew. Even if I didn't know what you were lying about, even if all you were doing was omitting a few key facts here or there, I always knew it. And I think you knew I knew. I think you liked knowing there was someone you couldn't con.

"And then you did. You conned me, Neal, and you did it on purpose, and it _worked._ And that's what I can't forgive. I fell for it. I can't forgive myself, for that."

Neal turns away from him, and Peter can read nothing in the lines of his shoulders. When he speaks his voice is light. "What was my tell?" It's as though they're making small talk on a lovely summer afternoon. "Before, when you'd know I was lying, what was my tell?"

Peter's throat is closed. Everything, he wanted to say. Your hand hovering on Diana's back as she walked through a door. Your jokes to Jones after yet another Nationals loss had him bummed out. The silly postcards you'd send to El whenever I mentioned she was having a stressful week at work. The love you had for Mozzie, for June, the way it showed in every word you said about either of them.

Your suits and your hat and your books and the artifacts on your walls. The way your shoes always shone. The way you'd smile when I caught on to whatever you were about to do, as if you were proud of me for figuring you out. Your kindness. Your enthusiasm. The way you relished impressing us with your knowledge, your deductions, your power. The way you relished belonging.

Your whole life was a tell. You had no poker face at all, not for me.

He finally spits out, "It doesn't matter." He's surprised that he means it, but he does. Diana is dead. El is gone. He's rich and successful, and there's no fixing this.

"He had a daughter," Neal says, low, so low Peter almost doesn't catch it.

"Who did?" He feels idiotic addressing the back of Neal's head, but it's a relief not to see his face when Neal speaks again.

"Chester. He had a daughter. Her name was Annabelle and she was 17 when I met her."

Neal tells the story coolly, quietly: The whirlwind teenage romance, the reckless promises they made to one another. Neal Caffrey always was a romantic. Peter had blamed Kate for that, once upon a time.

"She got sick," Neal is saying. "And I ran. I was young, and scared, and stupid, and what I thought was a fairy tale had become very, very real, and I ran. "

Peter closes his eyes. "That's why you tried to warn him off, once you knew he was the one we were after. You were trying to make it up to him, for hurting his daughter."

"She died less than six months after I left town," Neal whispers. His fists clench. "I swore if there was ever a way ... He never even knew it was me warning him. And I never thought –"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Peter shouts, finally, breaking, his hands on Neal's shoulders spinning him around. "If you'd trusted me, if you'd let me in for once in your goddamn arrogant life –"

Neal's smile is the bleakest thing Peter has ever seen. "Is it a story you'd be proud to tell?"

They're inches from each other, and it's hard to tell, because he's holding on so tight, which of them is shaking. "Why didn't you say, at the hearing, that … this … I could have … we might not have …"

Neal pulls away, leaving Peter standing there, his hands empty. "It wouldn't have mattered. The why didn't matter, and you know that as well as I do. Diana was dead. I'd blown the operation. Betrayal is betrayal."

He turns, and moves to the door.

"You taught me that."

 

5\. _I loved you from the start, but you'll never know what a fool I've been._

Three weeks after that, a slender man in a black fedora opens a post office box in Manhattan and removes a small package. He unwraps it, and lets the paper fall to the floor.

The photograph had been taken following an awards dinner at which Neal had been present at Peter's insistence and over Hughes' objections. He'd spent the night resentfully charming the administrative assistants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as per his usual, but nobody clapped harder when Diana went up to accept her commendation.

She's standing with her arm around him, and he's toasting her mock-formally with a crystal champagne flute. Her head is thrown back in laughter. She looks terribly young. Jones is in the background, looking bored; Hughes likewise, except annoyed.

Peter isn't in the picture at all. It's his shot, his view of them all.

It's a picture of them as he saw them, once upon a time.

The man picks up the paper – old habit, don't scatter fingerprints around – and tucks the photo back into it carefully.

He puts it in his pocket and walks away.

A.


End file.
